Even after witnessing the ravages of the Hamas bombing attack on a Jerusalem
bus packed with Israeli families on Tuesday, August 19, the Sharon government
held off a decision to inflict all-out military punishment on the Palestinian
Islamist terror group.

Washington had particularly requested patience to give the new Palestinian
leaders a chance to make good on their commitment to crack down on the terrorists.

The decision to strike a Hamas leader was only taken in the small hours of
Thursday, August 21, some 36 hours after the event, according to DEBKA-Net-Weeklys
military and intelligence sources. It was prompted by the explanation the Palestinian
internal security minister, Mohammed Dahlan, offered with a straight face to
President Bushs senior Middle East monitor John Wolf, for the delay in
Palestinian Authority action against the Hamas and the Jihad Islami.

He said without blinking that the Palestinian Authority had been held up by
a shortage of motor vehicles

When Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon heard this from Wolf, he on the spot
ordered defense minister Shaul Mofaz to set up the targeting of a Hamas leader.

Israeli security would have preferred Dr. Aziz Rantissi, the most extreme of
the Hamas chiefs who urges his group to keep on expanding its terror operations
against Israeli civilians. However, all the groups senior operatives dived
underground in a hurry after the imam from Hebron blew himself up on the Jerusalem
bus on its way back from the Western Wall crowded with large ultra-religious
families.

The Israeli Air Force had been on alert over the Gaza Strip since the bus blast,
filling the skies with dozens of warplanes, Apache and Cobra gunship helicopters
and drones. Now, air crews were told to hit the first Hamas leader come in their
sights without waiting for further instructions.

Ismail Abu Shanab, number five in the Hamas hierarchy, had the misfortune to
surface at the wrong moment. He was killed in his car with his two bodyguards.

Israels warplanes continue to patrol the Gaza Strip round the clock.

American and Israeli intelligence sources with long experience of the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict predict a lethal, escalating exchange of violence and terror in the
ten to twelve days following the breakdown Thursday of the shaky, stuttering
truce that had lasted less than two months. The fury will continue for a week
to ten days, as Israelis continue to seek out Hamas leaders and their Qassam
surface missile manufacturing facilities in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, while
the Hamas will attempt to bring off more multi-casualty terrorist attacks and
hit Israeli targets and towns with their missiles and mortars, without exposing
themselves.

In the meantime, US diplomats will work hard to haul the ceasefire back on
its uncertain course.